[Rarebooks] FS: Unpublished Manuscript intended for THE MASSES by JOHN REED

[Charles Agvent]

 From our recently posted internet catalog, the entirety of which can be 
seen at  http://www.charlesagvent.com

REED, John. ACROSS THE WAR WORLD (UNPUBLISHED TYPESCRIPT). At sea: 
Hillacre, September, 1917. First Edition. Nine pages typed on four 
8-1/2" x 11" leaves of Hotel Brevoort letterhead and 
Scandinavian-American Line letterhead with Reed's name typed at the top 
right corner of the first page, and pages numbered at the tops of the 
following pages. With the original envelope addressed in Reed's hand, 
postmarked twice and stamped "Opened by Censor." Reed's important 
unpublished typescript was written while he was traveling on board a 
Danish liner from the United States to Norway during World War I. It was 
intended to be published in THE MASSES, but the delay in transit -- the 
first postmark is dated 3 September 1917, and received in 
Croton-on-Hudson on 11 August 1919, addressed to Mrs. B[oardman] 
Robinson -- as well as that magazine's legal battle under the Sedition 
Act must have precluded its publication.

Reed begins his essay with a transcription of a notice that was posted 
on board the ship. It reads: "As this ship belongs to a neutral nation 
the Passengers are requested, on receipt of war news, to avoid all 
public manifestations of political sympathies or antipathies./The 
Captain." Reed describes the appearance of this notice as "startling" 
and goes on to describe his fellow passengers, commenting on the fact 
that they share their world views with each other in spite of it. He 
explains, "The 'neutrality' notice is not needed. Although we have on 
board Americans, Russians, Danes, a Frenchman and several frankly 
pro-German Swedes, there are only two real belligerents-- the ship's 
captain, stoutly pro-Ally, and a naturalized American of Dutch 
extraction, who is the most patriotic man I have ever seen."
Reed continues by saying that many of the second and third class 
passengers are Jews who had been living in the Lower East Side:
"Most of them are political exiles, sent home at the expense of the new 
Provisional government. You had to prove that you were a political 
exile, of course, before you got the ticket and two hundred dollars 
allowed; and to do this it was necessary to appear before the nearest 
Russian Consul.... What Odysseys the least of these people had endured!"
Reed sums up the plight of the returning exiles with a question: "Wasn't 
Russia their country now, to do with as they pleased, and weren’t they 
going home to set things right?"

In concluding his essay, Reed illustrates the fact that in spite of the 
war news coming through on the wireless set, the "neutral" journey at 
sea was as unreal as the news of war: "It is lunch-time. We are eating 
fresh mackerel, taken on board at Christianssand. Somebody remarks that 
the mackerel this year are extraordinarily fat.... And looking up, I see 
that everyone, a little smiling, a little pale, is thinking of what 
those fat fish have been eating, out there in the North Sea and along 
the coast of Flanders...."

Together with:

LE COQ, Martha Weatherly. JOHN REED, THE AMERICAN LAFAYETTE: HIS LIFE 
AND PORTRAIT. Philadelphia: Published by Daniel M. Delany, 1933. Octavo; 
brown wrappers, stapled; printed in orange; wrappers detached from 
binding. First edition, with a frontispiece photograph by Karl Koehler, 
based on a painting by Ivan Le Coq. A presentation copy, INSCRIBED and 
SIGNED on the half-title page: "Dear Mr. Brown-- The recognition of 
Russia makes our little book very apropos at this time. We thought you, 
as a classmate of Reed's would be particularly interested in seeing it. 
Martha & Ivan Le Coq."

Occasional staining, some aging to paper, normal folds from mailing. 
Very Good.

John Reed was perhaps the best known left-wing American journalist of 
the twentieth century. He was portrayed by Warren Beatty in the film 
REDS, nominated for twelve Academy Awards and winner of three, which 
centered on Reed's life, his romance with Louise Bryant, and his early 
death at 33 in Moscow. His best known book, TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE 
WORLD, 1919, recorded his eyewitness account of the 1917 Bolshevik 
Revolution in Russia. Reed became head of the U. S. Communist Labor 
Party in 1919, was indicted for treason, and escaped to the Soviet Union 
where he worked with Lenin and others. He died of typhus in 1920 and was 
buried beside the Kremlin wall. 		$7,500.00

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